MIFF Closing Night: Duplass double

There weren't actually two films at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival featuring a Duplass brother, Jay or Mark, in front of or behind the camera. If a film festival always benefits from one Duplass movie, two can only be better, right?

But I did follow up the MIFF Closing Night film, Language Lessons, which featured a Duplass in front of the camera, with a Duplass favorite I'd seen only once, Cyrus, which has both of them behind the camera.

There's something a little special about a Closing Night film -- that phrase doesn't look right either lower or upper case -- that distinguishes it from the others. My 12th and final film of this year's MIFF only became available at 7 p.m. on Saturday night, and only for something like an eight-hour period, differentiating it from the other streaming films, which were available for the duration. (With the exception of the Opening Night film, CODA, which I did not see, which was only available for an eight-hour window that night.)

So in order to make it a little more special, my wife and I ordered Mexican from our favorite local Mexican restaurant, margaritas included. 

When we planned that food option we didn't realize how appropriate it would be. Language Lessons, a two-hander starring Mark Duplass and Natalie Morales (who is also director), has to do with an American living in Oakland trying to brush up on his Spanish via video chat Spanish lessons with a woman living in Costa Rica. I suppose if she had been in Mexico that would have been a better match, but the language is shared between the two locations and that's good enough for me. 

Two other reasons the film was an appropriate way to finish this year's MIFF:

1. It was yet another film where the language of the film proved to be a surprise. Since I knew it was starring Mark Duplass, I could only assume that the film would be in English. As it turns out, at least half of the dialogue is in Spanish, as the two characters try to speak Spanish as much as possible in keeping with Duplass' character's intended immersion in the language. So you could say it was yet another film that I thought would be in English that ended up being primarily in another language. At least in this case I mostly understood the language due to my own immersion in the culture of a city where it is widely spoken (Los Angeles), and half of it was being spoken by a guy where it was not his first language, as I myself would speak it if I tried. (But much better than I could speak it, as I can understand Spanish better than I can produce the words spontaneously in conversation.)

2. It was a film made during the pandemic, about two people talking to each other over screens. Duplass himself gave us that history with a little video intro, in which he bemoaned that he couldn't be there in person (that would have been fun) but that it was thematically appropriate that his greeting to us would have to be in this format. Indeed, seeing this movie in a cinema would probably be the weirder thing, given how it was created and what we've been through the past 18 months, as exemplified by this very festival, which had to scuttle its theatrical screenings in favor of online only. 

Really liked the film. When I realized it was another film that was going to unfurl over Zoom, I got a little wary, as I'd already seen plenty of those in recent years as a kind of narrative stunt, even before the pandemic made it a somewhat necessary fallback option. But it's an extremely effective use of the format, not for reasons of "cleverness," but to show the sort of intimacy that can develop between two people through a computer screen.

And it's not that sort of "intimacy" either. Duplass' character is gay, which ruled out that sort of shipping from the start. In fact, we are just shipping for the friendship, which initially thrives on its obvious compatibility, and the fact that they both can be there for the other in difficult times. Of course there are threats to that -- the income inequality between the two being one -- otherwise there would be no conflict. But it ends up being one of those films with real heart and a real perceptiveness about human beings. Kind of like every other film Mark Duplass has ever been involved in.

I considered another Duplass two-hander that I haven't seen, Blue Jay, as the second half of my double feature when I couldn't scare up Cyrus in any of the obvious locations. But then I looked in a non-obvious location, and you know what? Cyrus is streaming on Disney+. That service just keeps on surprising me with its catalogue.

Cyrus was a favorite of mine in 2010 when it finished in my top ten of the year at #9. For reasons I can't really fathom, I've never gotten back to it for a second viewing. So when I decided a Duplass movie would be a good way to keep the evening's vibe going, this one immediately jumped to mind.

Still love it. The cast is great of course -- John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener -- but I had worried that Hill's role in the movie might seem too over-the-top to me today. Hardly. There's a touch of post-Step Brothers in the relationship between Reilly and Hill, but it's like the Duplass version of Step Brothers, where everything is life-sized and the ways the characters sabotage each other are subtle. Plus, like all Duplass movies, tons of heart in the end.

Okay, that's a wrap on MIFF 69. Maybe things will be back to "normal" with MIFF 70 a year from now.  

Those Duplass brothers make movies with heart

Jeff, Who Lives at Home opens with Jason Segel talking into a tape recorder.

At first, you think it's supposed to mean that Segel's character, Jeff, is an idiot. He's talking about the M. Night Shyamalan movie Signs. Particularly about the perfect synergy of coincidences in its final scene -- you know, the scene where Joaquin Phoenix uses a baseball bat to smash a bunch of unfinished glasses of water, thereby killing a bunch of aliens. Sorry if I just ruined Signs for you.

The most obvious and snarkiest way to play this scene is to use Jeff's love for the movie Signs -- which he admits to watching at least a half-dozen times -- as proof that he is someone to pity or laugh at. (Never mind that I'm with Jeff, not to the extent that he is, and notwithstanding that last scene in particular.)

But if you think Jay and Mark Duplass would go that way, you don't know Jay and Mark Duplass.

They love their character Jeff, and they love that he loves Signs. In fact, I'm not even sure they disagree with him. Maybe they love Signs too.

In both of their last two films, the previous being Cyrus, the Duplass brothers have managed a pretty nifty balancing act. They are adhering to the modern-day Apatow-infused comedy sensibilities enough to provide good material for the trailers, but secretly taking the movie itself in their own direction, one with an unexpected amount of heart. (This is not to imply that Apatow's movies don't have heart, but they don't have the raw, genuine, unfiltered heart that Duplass movies do.)

The Signs bit is a good example. If any part of that bit appeared in the trailer, though I believe it does not, it would be used to demonstrate that Jeff is a geek or a loser -- not very cool, someone who loves a director as played out as M. Night Shyamalan. In fact, you could take that one step further and say that the entire title Jeff, Who Lives at Home is intended to give you this impression, that Jeff is a man child who has never matured, who loves getting stoned and watching movies appreciated by geeks in his mother's basement.

Some of this is true. But the reasons he's never matured are not part of the realm of comedy. And Jeff's home? He's barely there at all.

I love this about the Duplass brothers, that they are kind of baiting and switching us for our own benefit. Cyrus did not play like many people thought it would play, as kind of a Step Brothers lite. (Though I might not have minded that, because I love Step Brothers.) Many people surely thought that John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill would spend the running time of Cyrus playing cruel pranks on each other in their desperate attempts to win Marisa Tomei's love. That stuff is in play, but not nearly to the extent you'd think it would be. And the supposed big set piece, in which Reilly and Hill come out the door of a wedding reception fighting, is a deadly serious, tragic moment -- as it would be in real life.

Mixing tragedy in with their comedy is what earns the Duplass brothers their heart. And without these difficult moments of real pain, the heart that fills the stretch run of Cyrus wouldn't be so satisfying. But don't be confused -- when I say "heart," I don't mean "shmaltz." I mean a genuine affection for the characters and a genuine, honest approach to a truly satisfying catharsis.

I won't say if Jeff, Who Lives at Home ends that way, because it just came out and you should see it. However, you can guess from my tone that I'm very satisfied with how it ends -- and with the movie in general.

And if something about the structure of this movie ends up resembling a little M. Night Shyamalan movie about aliens allergic to water, it's all the more proof of the Duplass brothers' refreshing disdain for cynicism.

Toys, Duplasses: Make me smile

I'm pretty glum today.

You probably know by now that I've been heavily invested in the basketball playoffs, and last night, that heavy investment ended in heartache: My Boston Celtics lost a 13-point third quarter lead, and the NBA Finals, to the hated Los Angeles Lakers. Who, unfortunately, reside in the same city as I do, meaning their fans are all around me. At least my neighborhood last night was relatively quiet -- just a few fireworks. No cars were burned or newsstands upended.

Strangely, I slept better after last night's Game 7 than I did after Game 6. I guess the brain has no choice but to reach some state of resolution after the series is over. No unknowns left to fear, anyway -- no worst possible outcomes still lying ahead. The only unknowns now are which players and coaches will be back, but that won't take shape for another couple weeks, at which point I'll have some much-needed distance from it.

So yeah, I'm glum. Even though I went with my wife to her doctor's appointment, and got a really cute picture of my 28-week-old baby in her stomach, I'm still a bit glum. It'll take some time.

So, Toy Story 3 and Cyrus couldn't come along soon enough. I need to laugh this weekend.

Everyone knows that Toy Story 3 is coming out today. The only reason we probably haven't seen more ads on TV is this: Not only is it Pixar, but it's a Toy Story movie. For both reasons, it sells itself.

But Cyrus is the one we will probably actually see this weekend. It won't be as laugh-out-loud funny as Toy Story 3 has the potential to be, though I should say, you go to a Toy Story movie more to smile than to laugh. Or maybe what I really should say is, Cyrus could be laugh-out-loud funny, but the laughter will be laced with bitterness, and almost certainly at someone's expense. Light, kid-friendly laughter seems like it would be more healing than awkward, cringe-worthy, you're-banging-my-mother laughter.

Then again, I'll take either in a pinch.

For those of you who haven't heard of Cyrus, it's the latest and most mainstream film from writer-directors Mark and Jay Duplass, the former of whom is also an actor, appearing in such films as Humpday and Greenberg. They're two of the biggest names in the mumblecore movement, known for such films as The Puffy Chair and Baghead. What's mumblecore? It's a movement of films using mostly non-professional actors and heavily improvised scripts, which has almost a documentary-style sense of heightened realism. (If those non-professional actors can act worth a damn, that is -- and they usually can.) The movement is starting to encroach into the mainstream more and more, as both Mark Duplass and Baghead's Greta Gerwig appeared in Greenberg. I'm excited to see what Mark and Jay can do with a Judd Apatow-style comedy with four major stars: John C. Reilly as a divorced man still pining after his ex; Catherine Keener as that ex; Marisa Tomei as the new woman he meets; and Jonah Hill as that woman's grown, overprotective son. The naturalism the Duplasses aspire to seems on display in the ads, and though I'm sure there promises to be plenty of broad comedy, I bet it will arise organically from the circumstances.

As for Toy Story 3 ... well, what can I say that hasn't been said? The first two movies are among my top 50 movies of all time, so Toy Story 3 has some pretty big shoes to fill. At first I was unsure if it could do so. The first images I saw of the movie gave me a "more of the same" vibe, the kind of vibe I might get a lot sooner if I saw another movie starring Wall-E or the rat from Ratatouille. But as time has gone on and I've admired the larger-than life outdoor advertisements they've been hanging around town (such as the one you see above), I feel more and more sure that any time spent with the Toy Story gang will be a good time.

And there you have it. The corner of my mouth went up a little bit just thinking about it.